Pumpkins, Strawberries and Joy

Hello!  Hope you are well!

Today I am sharing my hand illustrated Christmas cards with you!  I've been looking forward to doing this, but had to keep them under wraps for a while - but at last, here they are!

I wanted to create a handful of special cards that would show lots of little images reflecting the festive season...tiny pictures and words came to mind, and so after some sketching and doodling, I came up with these.  Each hand painted tile is mounted in relief of a white A5 sized card, and they're blank inside for your own message.  Seasonal greetings have been hand written around the edge of the artwork, and each card is signed by me.

The individual tiles are hand painted in watercolour, with a shimmer glaze for added sparkle and finished with ink.  There are only four left at present and I've got them up for sale in my Folksy Shop if you wish to take a peek.

Here's a close up:

I do hope you like them!

So, wandering away from All Things Christmassy, did you all have a ghoulish Halloween weekend?  My Small Person declared very loudly that she did NOT like witches at all, and would not dress up.  She said she thought the Scary Heads in the shops were horrid and did not like it.  Instead, she would dress up as a fairy and would stretch to helping with pumpkin scooping but that was it.

So pumpkin scooping it was, and not a witches hat in sight!

Our Halloween was very murky and foggy - very appropriate spooky conditions actually, and our lantern blazed marvellously outside in the gloom.  Miss Fairy spent much time back and forth looking at it out of the window, and talking to it.

"Mummy.  Pumpkin Head is sad.  He wants to come in for some tea!"

We are now looking forward to bonfire night - must get myself a decent pair of wellies this year unless I want to come home caked in mud like Farmer Barlemow again! And then it will be Christmas...although in some respects it feels like it already!!  But before we all go demented with the sights of heavily decorated department stores (with Mariah Carey piped in for good measure), I thought I'd mention another little print I'm releasing...and this, I hope you will like, because it harks back to late summer, not a whiff of Christmas about it (unless you would like to buy one as a Christmas present of course!! :D)

Taken from the original painting 'Strawberries & Daisies' - this print will be available on my website, and eventually in my Folksy and Etsy emporiums for £14.00.  It comes mounted with a back board, and each print is hand titled and signed.

Each print is also gift wrapped in bright tissue paper and twine...

...and don't forget, UK mainland customers can take advantage of Free Shipping!

Well there is much to be done these days, Im doing my best to visit Blogland as much as I can, and I've enjoyed catching up with a few of you - Im looking forward to my mid-afternoon cuppa when I will make time to have another roam!  For now though, there is work to be done, a Small Person to keep amused so I will wave Au-revoir for now.  Thank you so much for stopping by, it means such a lot that you do, and also for taking time to comment, I know its a busy time of year for many of you, which makes it all the more special when you do drop in to say Hello.

Sending you caramel lattes, warm mittens and love

Julia x

Gently Bobbing Along

Hello.

I hope you are all well and will forgive my little absence - I meant to write last week, I really did, and then, you know how Life Happens and sneaks up on you, gets in the way of the nice normal stuff...

That's kind of what happened here :)

Anyway, in between the hectic happenings and early nights (necessary from all the hectic happenings), we have been doing some rather gentle nice things here and there...

There have been some genuinely lovely Homey Moments these last couple of weeks, those moments where you suddenly feel very cosy in your little abode and so very glad to be surrounded with your own bits and bobs, books and pictures, jugs of golden autumn flowers, and Stuff.

Ive noticed this feeling usually starts to happen at this time of year, like a Nestling in preparation for the colder months - I feel very happy pottering about in the house, baking things and just appreciating my little domain and it's little lived in corners; switching on my white fairy lights whilst cooking tea, lighting candle lanterns early evening...little things like that :)

We have been on slow jaunts, enjoying the ruby amber beauty of these warm autumn days...something so inspiring about those bright red leaves against a cerulean blue sky and the comforting feel of smooth, shiny conkers clustered in your pocket.

Did I mention we had been baking? After what seems like weeks of not doing any, Nigella seems to have worked her magic on us here and we are happily road testing all manner of delicious treats from her new book which I treated myself to whilst in Wales over the weekend (told you it had been hectic). Yesterday we made her Choc Chip Cookies:

There aren't many left :)

On the art front, I have managed to find snippets of time to create..

...I'm currently finishing hand illustrating some Christmas cards - here's a wee peek into my sketchbook as I played about with some seasonal images...

I'll be launching the first peek of these cards on my Newsletter - and I will also be offering one as part of a giveaway Im hosting on my Facebook Page ~ you are most welcome to sign up to either by clicking the links.

Thank you for bobbing by today - hopefully life will settle itself down a bit now and things can resume their usual happy pace which means more time for Blog Visiting and the like.

Sending you love, see you again soon.

Julia x x x

It's not a crocheted bag then...

'The Lantern Keeper'

Well Hello!

I'm so glad you dropped by to visit me today, you see, I have something nice to share with you, of both the painty~arty kind (as you will no doubt have already sussed from the picture above) and something that resembles a woolly kind of Ta~Dah moment.

But first, about this painting.

At this point you may well be wondering, yes but where is the other one, the one with the turquoise blue sea, the stripy jug of big daisies, the red and white polka dot cup...?

Ah yes. That one.

My friends, that particular painting and I have had another altercation. It is a relationship that will run its course until the picture is finished, but its a bit like getting involved with someone who's the wrong star sign. I keep falling out of love with it, and then back in again - and you know me, I don't like to rush things and ruin them, so me and the Painting have agreed on a temporary separation, and we will meet up again once I have got over feeling like I would like to hurl it out of the window.

So, I have been busy on an illustrative painting called 'The Lantern Keeper.' The idea came to me the other day as I was imagining a little chap of the forest (as you do), who went around in the starry twilight making sure all of God's creatures were safe and secure in their cosy little homes and beds...and this painting emerged, the Lantern Keeper carefully carrying a small blue butterfly back to its folks in the meadow...

...and this is a line and wash drawing I did of him ~ listening intently there to a little songbird up in the branches of a tree.

It does feel like some time since I did any illustrative work like this. I know you might think that most of my work is illustrative (and yes, I suppose it is as its all very much from my imagination) but my recent paintings have been landscapes of the seaside and boaty kind.

Painting this was lovely, I so enjoy character work and now my Little Egg is in her nursery sessions, it looks like my horizon is going to be dotted with extra hours here and there to invest in more art! Hurrah!! Yes, I'm delighted, but I cannot lie ~ Little Egg doesn't like nursery. No. Not a jot. Suffice to say, it is an emotional and often difficult time and I know many of you Mum's reading this will know exactly what I'm on about. Still, we are making slow progress, and that in itself is a blessing.

Now.

What was I saying before about a woolly sort of 'Ta-Dah' moment...hee hee?!!

Ah yes. Well, remember those Popcorn Flower Grannies I made some time back? Yes? Good.

Do you remember how I was going to make them into a bag? Yes?

Well I didn't.

Isn't that just like me? I must confess, I had a couple of really quite nice ideas for a bag, but on Saturday I went to York and somehow a new flowery velvet CK messenger bag came home with me (how that happened I have no idea) so I decided to put Plan B into action with those little squares the other night, and look what I made instead!

Ladies (and Gentlemen, if indeed there are any of you reading this) ~ The Popcorn Flower Granny Cushion!!

I confess, I am utterly in love with it.

I also crocheted a nice little buttony edge onto it, as well as using a huge granny square I'd made ages ago to make the back part of the cushion.

Would you like to see it with all its brothers and sisters?

Ahhh, alright then :D

Of course there is only room for one person to sit down on our sofa now, but hey-ho! Can you see my Rainbow Ripple on there too? It's not finished yet (not far to go with it) but I couldn't resist road testing it with all the other cushions and blankets for this picture. I admit I went ever so slightly delirious at all the colourful hooky goodness in front of me just then! I had to sit down! And it suddenly popped into my head as I sat amongst all that crochet that I'd promised to show you how to join those colourful squares. Well, I will endeavour to do a wee tutorial for you in the next few weeks, so that you can make your own bags, cushions and blankets from your Popcorn Grannies.

Would that be fun?

I have to say here and now in case any of you are wondering about a pattern for that cushion, is that I didn't really make one. It was a bit like the bolster in that it kind of happened of its own accord, although I could probably create a pattern if enough of you were interested, at least a rough guide to making your very own Popcorn Cushion.

So, with that, I will get on with some more drawing.

I have to say very quietly at this point that I am going to be launching some limited edition hand illustrated Christmas Cards very soon (see how I whispered that so you wouldn't get cross with me for saying it in September?). They will be up for grabs first to my dear Mailing List subscribers ~ that is one of the nice treats that those dear souls get from signing up you see, so if you would like to be amongst the first to see them and indeed get your hands on them, why not sign up for my little e-newsletter here?!

I hope you all have warm weekends, sprinkled with crisp autumn walks and cosy moments!

Much love

Julia x x x

Restless Days

Hello dear souls.

You find me in a restless and wistful state of mind at the moment. Do you ever feel like that? Like you can't settle long to any task, that life is held in limbo somehow, and the mind wanders aimlessly to places far away and lends itself to dreaming quite a lot.

And add to that mixture, unsurprisingly, the creative juices seem to have stopped flowing. All dried up, nothing doing.

Oh dear, it's a funny old state of affairs when life suddenly goes all tipsy like this without warning, and all the comfortable normal stuff is suddenly quite bland and very uninteresting.

I find my weary little mind asking some rather Big Questions too, about whether this part of the world really suits us any longer, but if it doesn't - what then? I find myself hankering for my life by the sea again, having a beach on the doorstep and always being amazed by that. I know, some of you may be reading this and thinking 'yep, we'd all like a bit of that!' but this thought is starting to drive me to distraction and the feeling of being landlocked in the middle of the UK is sending me quite claustrophobic!!

I don't want this to be a maudlin post, but I want to be a real person here and share what's really happening in my little world. Im going to continue musing, listening to the things that keep popping in my mind and see what evolves.

In the meantime, whilst my head is firmly ensconced in dreamland (where I live in an arty and bustling little beachside abode) I will share with you some pictures of some new Hand Illustrated greetings cards.

These are pencil and watercolour drawings on Canson watercolour paper,which has been mounted onto a blank white card, titled and signed...

...and both of them are available in my Folksy and Etsy shops ~ the links are in the sidebar :D

Similar cards have sold well before in the little gallery in Lincolnshire, and apparently some people like to buy them to frame as they are in effect, tiny original paintings!

I hope you like them!

This is quite a short post today, (a day later than usual my friends as yesterday I was to preoccupied to write anything) as Im off to town very soon. I want to welcome some new followers who have joined my blog recently and to thank you for stopping by with such nice comments - Im still in awe of the lovely people I have had the pleasure to meet through blogging and Im looking forward to meeting many more - oh, I must apologise too, been a bit poor on Blog Visiting this last week, but hopefully this post may go a short way to explaining why.

Hopefully normal service will soon be resumed and life will soon find a scoop of normality from somewhere to relieve this unsettled feeling.

Til next time, sending mucho love your way...

J x